Duddingston Kirk

Holyrood & Arthur’s Seat


Poised on a promontory overlooking Duddingston Loch, this church is one of the oldest buildings in Edinburgh, with some interesting medieval relics at the kirkyard gate: the Joug, a metal collar that was used, like the stocks, to tether criminals and sinners, and the Loupin-On Stane, a stone step to help gouty and corpulent parishioners get onto their horses. The early 19th-century watchtower inside the gate was built to deter body snatchers.


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